So this weekend was a fairly busy one, and from a personal standpoint I seemed to have accomplished a lot more than I had set out to.
Friday
Friday began with me taking off early from work, my plan was to get some time in on WHM as it was halfway to 39, my hope was to get close to 40 before I had to head out for Sea and Limbus at 6:30PM. What ended up happening was I got within 1k of 40 at about 6:15PM and I decided to forgo Sea and finish getting WHM to 40 and adding a buffer. WHM is just slow going and one has to constantly watch HP and MP to effectively solo, even on EP mobs, there ends up being more downtime than other jobs as a result. Nevertheless, I managed to get WHM to 40 with a 1k buffer in about 30-35 minutes. Since I wasn't doing Sea and had some time before Limbus I decided to get the WHM AF Weapon Blessed Hammer, (this is something that my WHM will be using to melee with up to 49, though I can't equip it til 41). The quest was easy, but I got stuck waiting for nighttime to pop the NM, gotta love SE and their ability to add time wasters to everything we do. So Goal 1 for the weekend accomplished.
After I put the WHM away it was time for Limbus and I wasn't quite sure how our turnout would be since Hoodini's account got banned (I haven't heard anything from him since he told the shell), Monday was low and I had a feeling Friday would be too. My gut feeling was right, we had 15 people show up (down from 21) and I was forced to decide on a split run or a full run. Since we seemed to be lacking folks for the last two runs and both Rues and Liela would be gone this upcoming Friday I decided to go ahead and split with the hopes we could get both chips for Omega tonight.
With Hoodini down for the count, we decided to promote Rues and Liela to sackholder positions, in part because they seem to get a long with everyone, work well as a tandem, show up to almost every run and have got a ton of low-man experience in Limbus (for example, they can duo NW). Because of their expertise in NW I decided to let them take a team there for their first run as leads, and from all accounts they seemed to do a fine job and we got the win. I'm hopeful the two of them will be able to pick up the nuances of Limbus fairly quickly so I don't have to do all the work (Seif and Arnor are not always available to do runs).
With six people taking NW, my group was down to nine folks, and SE (weaknesses) was our target. Now typically I hate doing any Apollyon run with less than 10 people, sure it can be done, but I like to guarantee wins instead of hoping for everyone to be at the top of their game. We were right on the line of what I consider a guaranteed win and folks needing to bring their A Game. The first floor went well and I got the impression we were going to have an easy go at it (cue ominous music). The second floor ended up showing signs of trouble as our only sleeper (RDM) had to be told to sleep the links, I found this annoying, but it was not an issue that was slowing us down. The third floor is where the shit hit the fan, this is the floor with skeletons and this is where I discovered our RDM doesn't really like to multitask. What we needed from her was Dispel the skeletons as they came in, heal and provide paralynas for the tank party (which was just my NIN and Shilo as BLU). While she seemed to handle the first two ok, getting paralynas proved to be problematic and I had to ask the DDs WHM to cover the entire alliance with paralyna. On our last skeleton I got hit with Slow, and anyone who has tried to NIN tank with Slow can attest, it's not a good idea to cast shadows in this condition (in fact it turned out to be Slow II as Haste didn't override it). I asked to have it removed, waited a few and asked again, waited some more (at this point Tammyrose tried to Haste me to no effect). I asked again and nothing, so I finally started spamming for the RDM to Erase me, at which point she tried to Haste me and then ran away, I had to call her back and get her to Erase me THEN Haste me. All this fucking about knocked off 2-3 minutes from what was looking to be a down to the wire run. Once we were finally able to move forward we had about 10 minutes to kill Grave Digger (a Corse NM) and the Weapons on the 4th Floor. My team had to push it hard and a bad pull with the Weapons ended up getting Tammyrose killed and left us with the RDM as our only healer (which wouldn't have happened if the RDM had tried to Sleep the fucking links). So we had to finish the run with one healer and six mobs to go, which we did for the win. At the end of the day I really wish I had kept Shilo as RDM, he does a good job and knows what he has to do keep the run moving smoothly. You may be asking yourself why I even let the RDM come RDM, well therein lies the problem, I have to keep her on RDM because if I let her come NIN she goes all Leroy Jenkins on us and creates mass chaos (last time she started voking and pulling mobs, despite the fact she was neither the tank nor the puller).
At any rate, we have all four chips for Omega and will tackle him tonight, so Goal 2 for the weekend was accomplished.
Saturday
I got up early Saturday because I wanted some McDonalds for breakfast and I figured I could get some Trial of the Magians work accomplished while I waited on Einherjar to start. As such I had about an hour before Einherjar to kill birds. I thought I was in for some fun when I zoned and weather was up, I killed my first bird and during the second bird the weather went away and stayed away. I ended up talking shit in the shell the rest of the hour while waiting for nothing to happen. So technically Goal 3 was accomplished, but it was disappointing.
So up next was Einherjar and you could get a sense from the mood we might be in for a bit of trouble, can't quite put my finger on what it was, but something was off. As it turns out, I was right, as a team we were just a bit off and hate wasn't being handled well (a theme that would bite us in the ass later in the day), BUT, in the end Odin was defeated and we got a bunch of good drops. However, once again, I was shut out of the BLM gear, which bums me out, especially now that Kaeko is also targeting this gear (it's not the competition I have a problem with, it's feeling like an ass when I raise the bid knowing Kaeko can't go higher). I'm sure we'll both get it eventually, but it's fucking annoying seeing gear that we can get from Einherjar OR Sky drop all the time while the gear that only drops in Einherjar never seems to fall. Goal 4 of the weekend (for me) was fail.
After Einherjar we had about two hours before we started on VNMs, I spent this time waiting for more weather that never came. I don't care what anyone says about the other Trials, waiting for weather has to be about the most fucking boring thing possible in the game. I'm already tired of the Trials and I'm only on the second trial on the first of four expected paths. About a half hour prior to starting the VNMs I gave up and changed to BLM for the remainder of the day.
On the VNMs the goal, once again, was Krabkatoa. Now, I'll admit I wouldn't mind the MND ring, but I am getting tired of this particular path, I'd like to see the other VNMs at some point. At any rate, I digress, we had a Blue Abyssite from last weekend so our first target of the day was to be the crab. We pulled him to a fence area in East Ronfaure with the intent of two PLDs holding him while the BLMs nuked him down. What ended up happening was more hate chaos that made us all look like a bunch of fucking noobs. Qtipus may be willing to put it off as we don't typically worry about hate management in Obsidian so people are a bit rusty or misguided. I won't be so kind (especially when the BLMs take all kinds of shit for minor things), simply put, folks should be ashamed by the sheer lack of knowledge about their jobs that they are pulling hate where none should be necessary. Since hate was never established we basically ran Krabkatoa around the fence for 30% of its health, nuking when we could, eventually we all ended up wiping. To be honest this strategy might be doable, but there were too many people pulling hate, and even more just standing around in the kite paths doing nothing. It was an embarrassing display and I'm still annoyed by it two days later.
Not so willing to admit defeat, we decided to take another crack at Krabkatoa and this meant getting more Blue Abyssite, we eventually got two before heading back to E. Ron for Round 2. This time we went a different route and went with a strategy that called for two MNKs to tank him. Once again we failed miserably to get hate established and ended up with one long 30 minute fuckfest that led to another wipe. Despite all the chaos we did get him down to 35%, but damnit if people don't need to get their shit together and work as a team, especially when it comes to hate generating actions (Cure IV = bad, Thunder IV = bad, etc, etc, etc). After the second wipe we called it a day on the VNMs, next week we will try Krabkatoa…again.
After the VNMs we had about two hours to kill before Sky, not sure what other people did, but I just chilled out until it was time to head out. For Sky we had a ton of God pop items to burn through and when it was all said and done we killed three Byakkos, three Suzakus, two Seiryus, and two Genbus. The bullshit from Einherjar and VNMs seemed to have dissipated and we had a fairly solid event to cap Saturday off. From a personal standpoint I took in a big haul from Sky as I FINALLY got my hands on Byakko's Haidate (Goal 6) as well as Susaku's Sune-Ate (Goal 7) and Zenith Mitts (not a goal, but an opportunity). Once I got the pants all the frustration from Friday and early in the day went away, getting them means I can now sit back and enjoy Sky.
After Sky I had to test out my new threads, so I set my gear macros (using my database, naturally) and geared up for Campaign. I only went to two battles (it was pretty late), but I was pretty happy to see my Jins all landing for 500+ damage (a couple came close to 1k). And I got a Merit Point from being there, so that was nice.
Sunday
I only had two things on my plate for Sunday (well three, I had to make Mother's Day phonecalls also), one was Dynamis and the other was to start on SCH. Dynamis was in the Glacier and we had a smaller group than usual, but it turned out to be a pretty good run. Everyone was on their game, and we burned through all the timers we usually get with an hour to spare for farming.
With SCH, for the longest time I have treated SCH like a WHM-Lite, both jobs were sharing gear and no one invited me to parties to nuke things, so when it came to soloing I found that SCH was going to be the worst of the lot…by far. You see, SCH can't equip hammers and paddles don't do a lot of damage so using Clubs was out. Staffs aren't practical either as the delay is pretty high and for a job with paper defense, spending extended time in front of mobs is a bad idea. All SCH has left is Daggers, and with a D rating, I was looking at Sushi over Mithkabobs, which wasn't that ideal either. Thankfully Arnor saw just how foolish my thinking on this was and suggested I look at SCH like a BLM-Lite if I'm going to solo it. This was an outstanding idea and I feel stupid for not thinking of it myself, and thankfully I still had all the gear I was going to need since I used it all on BLM.
So off I went to Yhoator Jungle to pick on Tonberry Elementals, my goal for the day was to get at least to level 38 and if time permitted. level 39. My first pull ended up being a mess, I was a bit rustier than I expected to be, the Elemental killed me and I deleveled. Not to be deterred I got back up and shook off the cobwebs, getting my level back and making short work of the next Elemental. After that I spent 20 minutes running around trying to get in a good position to pull another one. I had one Tonberry guarding my safe fight zones and I was about to start fighting out in the open when I got a /tell from Meesha about doing a manaburn in the Sanctuary of Zi-Tah. It's been some time since I manaburned at the Zi'Tah OP, but I figured it had to be better than trying to get the Tonberries to cooperate so I quickly accepted.
When I got there I was surprised to see my party consisted of a WAR (Meesha), a RDM, a BLM, and my SCH. We had two more SCH on the way and we were going to sync to level 27. This was a rather large departure from my days of BLM soloing/duoing/trioing here, back in my time (this was before Moses parted the Red Sea) you had to be nuts to try this camp below 30 and everyone was a BLM. As it turned out, this set up was awesome, we were averaging 9-10k an hour with Meesha pulling leeches almost nonstop and we kept it up for some time. When we finally called it, my SCH had gone from level 37 to level 42, Goal 8 accomplished and then some!
So for me this weekend was a win over all, I got my Kitty Pants and all of my subjobs are ready for the June update. I hope the good fortune continues and we have the folks for Omega tonight.
Stating the Obvious
Monday, May 10, 2010
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Leveling Subjobs
So for the last few weeks I've been gather gear so I could level my subjobs. This meant spending gil, camping NMs, working logistics, identifying gear, and basically getting up the nerve to actually level the jobs. As one of those packrat type players, I have four mules just for gear alone, one holds my Ninja gear (though not much, he mostly holds Ninjutsu crafting materials), one holds mage gear, one holds melee gear under level 25 and one hold melee gear over 25. Between all those mules I had good gear for each of my subjobs, so the first thing I needed to do was identify what gear I did have and what gear I would need to upgrade on the way to 49. Once I had the gear identified I had to decide if I was willing to spend the gil, camp the NMs or do the quests to get it. What this ultimately meant was, for example, was I willing to purchase/camp Bravo's Subligar for my Thief (no), or would I be willing to do the quests to obtain a Promise Badge for my mages (yes). After I vetted my top choices, I had to backtrack a bit and decide what gear I was going to get instead.
The next stage was to start purchasing the gear (and spells) as well as track down the R/E items I planned to get. Took me about two weeks camping the AHs to track down all the purchasable gear I wanted. During this time I camped a number of NMs (like Qull the Shellbuster and Nue) and picked up quite a few things, but there were a couple snags, Jujitsu Gi, Brown Belt and Gothic Sabatons. Camping the Jujitsu Gi reminded me of why I didn't have it to begin with, there's always someone there and the drop-rate is crappy, at the same time the price was dropping on the AH and I ended up buying it for around 100k. Camping the Brown Belt was a slightly different issue, I had Dodo Skin from way back in the day, so I only needed to kill the tiger and marlboro. Nue was easy, no one was ever there, but I went 0/15 on the damn drop and became despondent, I checked in on Morbolger a few times, but he was never up. In addition, the prices on the Brown Belt started plummeting on the AH (it was 380k when I started all this), eventually I said to hell with the camping and bought it for a measly 200k. The Gothic Sabatons have been absurdly tough to get, they are a brown casket drop in Behemoth's Dominion and at one point I saw 2 brown caskets and 50 blue ones, the percentage odds have not favored me. At this point I just plan to wait for the Kupower Mystery Boxes: Frontier Lands because trying to camp it as is has pushed me to the edge and I consider this piece necessary for WAR and DRK. Aside from the Gothic Sabatons there is one piece of gear left to get and that's a Voyager Sallet. I haven't went after this item because I'm waiting for the level cap to be removed for the CoP zones, so this is something that will have to wait til June.
The final step in all of this was taking inventory of my gear and determining what to move, when I was going to be done with it, and what to sell. This was easy, but it took some time to coordinate everything between nine subjobs and four mules (this also includes R/E stuff I have in storage). What I have in place now is a level by level gear guide for each of my nine subjobs and all the gear and spells I'll need to go with them and when I need to change my gear (and sell the gear in some instances).
I plan to level my subjobs solo as I'd rather do something than wait on a party, but all of them I leveled over the weekend were invited to level sync, so it seems like solo will be more of a personal choice depending on the job (everything is skilled so I don't lose much from syncing anyway). My plan is to get everything to 40 first and then 45 if I have time, getting to level 49 will probably come later in the year.
My tally as of today:
WAR 52 - WAR was my first job, I gave up shortly after reaching level 50 to become a full-time Ninja, all I did here was modernize the gear.
MNK 40 - This isn't much of a subjob for NIN, but it's something I've kept up with in the event I want to break it out.
RNG 40 - This isn't so much of a subjob as it is my next job to 75+
SAM 40 - Like MNK, this gets used every so often, the last time I subbed it was for ZNMs.
DRK 39 - I started on this last night, Horror Voulge, Bloody Bolts and Drain have made this a formidable job to solo on.
WHM 38 - When I solod WHM to 37, it was surprisingly easy, I'm hoping for more of the same.
RDM 37 - IMO, RDM is going to be the subjob of choice for NIN tanking once we hit 99, NIN/RDM looks more exciting than ever!
SCH 37 - This will be the worst job to solo, I'm going to have to pray for party invites because it's going to take a long time by myself.
THF 37 - I plan to do this after I get DRK to 40, but damnit if I would rather leave it be.
There are two other subs that I have thought about in passing, but I doubt I ever bother to level, those would be BLU and DNC. BLU looks like it will have a number of the spells that will make RDM so useful, so it's something to be mindful of. DNC is probably the ultimate solo subjob, but that doesn't mean I have to level it (prancing around and doing pirouettes is NOT something I want to see Drakus doing).
The next stage was to start purchasing the gear (and spells) as well as track down the R/E items I planned to get. Took me about two weeks camping the AHs to track down all the purchasable gear I wanted. During this time I camped a number of NMs (like Qull the Shellbuster and Nue) and picked up quite a few things, but there were a couple snags, Jujitsu Gi, Brown Belt and Gothic Sabatons. Camping the Jujitsu Gi reminded me of why I didn't have it to begin with, there's always someone there and the drop-rate is crappy, at the same time the price was dropping on the AH and I ended up buying it for around 100k. Camping the Brown Belt was a slightly different issue, I had Dodo Skin from way back in the day, so I only needed to kill the tiger and marlboro. Nue was easy, no one was ever there, but I went 0/15 on the damn drop and became despondent, I checked in on Morbolger a few times, but he was never up. In addition, the prices on the Brown Belt started plummeting on the AH (it was 380k when I started all this), eventually I said to hell with the camping and bought it for a measly 200k. The Gothic Sabatons have been absurdly tough to get, they are a brown casket drop in Behemoth's Dominion and at one point I saw 2 brown caskets and 50 blue ones, the percentage odds have not favored me. At this point I just plan to wait for the Kupower Mystery Boxes: Frontier Lands because trying to camp it as is has pushed me to the edge and I consider this piece necessary for WAR and DRK. Aside from the Gothic Sabatons there is one piece of gear left to get and that's a Voyager Sallet. I haven't went after this item because I'm waiting for the level cap to be removed for the CoP zones, so this is something that will have to wait til June.
The final step in all of this was taking inventory of my gear and determining what to move, when I was going to be done with it, and what to sell. This was easy, but it took some time to coordinate everything between nine subjobs and four mules (this also includes R/E stuff I have in storage). What I have in place now is a level by level gear guide for each of my nine subjobs and all the gear and spells I'll need to go with them and when I need to change my gear (and sell the gear in some instances).
I plan to level my subjobs solo as I'd rather do something than wait on a party, but all of them I leveled over the weekend were invited to level sync, so it seems like solo will be more of a personal choice depending on the job (everything is skilled so I don't lose much from syncing anyway). My plan is to get everything to 40 first and then 45 if I have time, getting to level 49 will probably come later in the year.
My tally as of today:
WAR 52 - WAR was my first job, I gave up shortly after reaching level 50 to become a full-time Ninja, all I did here was modernize the gear.
MNK 40 - This isn't much of a subjob for NIN, but it's something I've kept up with in the event I want to break it out.
RNG 40 - This isn't so much of a subjob as it is my next job to 75+
SAM 40 - Like MNK, this gets used every so often, the last time I subbed it was for ZNMs.
DRK 39 - I started on this last night, Horror Voulge, Bloody Bolts and Drain have made this a formidable job to solo on.
WHM 38 - When I solod WHM to 37, it was surprisingly easy, I'm hoping for more of the same.
RDM 37 - IMO, RDM is going to be the subjob of choice for NIN tanking once we hit 99, NIN/RDM looks more exciting than ever!
SCH 37 - This will be the worst job to solo, I'm going to have to pray for party invites because it's going to take a long time by myself.
THF 37 - I plan to do this after I get DRK to 40, but damnit if I would rather leave it be.
There are two other subs that I have thought about in passing, but I doubt I ever bother to level, those would be BLU and DNC. BLU looks like it will have a number of the spells that will make RDM so useful, so it's something to be mindful of. DNC is probably the ultimate solo subjob, but that doesn't mean I have to level it (prancing around and doing pirouettes is NOT something I want to see Drakus doing).
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Don't Stop Til You Get Enough
So yeah, once I completed the Gear Macros for my database I got another bug up my ass and decided to add a Craft Calculator to it. I've had a calculator I created in Excel for some time now, but I've always felt it was a bit limited and now seemed like a good time to flesh out all my ideas and place the whole thing in Access.
Now, making a crafting calculator isn't the most straightforward thing if you want to do it right as there are a number of factors to consider. The first of these factors is breaks, SE put a maximum success rate of 95% on everything, but when you are under the craft's synth level, the percentages drop to as low as 50% (anything 11 levels and under can't be crafted at all). Now the standard calculators don't take into account just how far below the synth level you are, they just factor in 50% and leave it at that. However, the closer you get to the synth level, the less chance of breaks so the first stage of my calculations and to take this progression into account. The next factor is HQ Rate, once again this takes into account your levels, but unlike break rates the HQ rates are tiered and much easier to factor in. The difference I had to look at was the percentage each stage of the craft yield could HQ, and this is where the calculations turn into a mile long statement. After all of that was processed, I had to create a way that would display single yield items (like armor and weapons) and stack items (food and ammo) in the same form without making the form appear too busy.
When it was all said and done, I decided to add some flair. The first thing was being able to search for a craft, this is useful because the database holds all of the data input (by design) and without being able to search against it, one could lose track of their calculations very quickly. I also added a NQ/HQ compass and NQ/HQ days that change based on the crystal used in the synth. Getting the look of the HQ/NQ parts actually took much longer than writing the code and formulas. At any rate, the two below images are just a couple of examples.
Now, making a crafting calculator isn't the most straightforward thing if you want to do it right as there are a number of factors to consider. The first of these factors is breaks, SE put a maximum success rate of 95% on everything, but when you are under the craft's synth level, the percentages drop to as low as 50% (anything 11 levels and under can't be crafted at all). Now the standard calculators don't take into account just how far below the synth level you are, they just factor in 50% and leave it at that. However, the closer you get to the synth level, the less chance of breaks so the first stage of my calculations and to take this progression into account. The next factor is HQ Rate, once again this takes into account your levels, but unlike break rates the HQ rates are tiered and much easier to factor in. The difference I had to look at was the percentage each stage of the craft yield could HQ, and this is where the calculations turn into a mile long statement. After all of that was processed, I had to create a way that would display single yield items (like armor and weapons) and stack items (food and ammo) in the same form without making the form appear too busy.
When it was all said and done, I decided to add some flair. The first thing was being able to search for a craft, this is useful because the database holds all of the data input (by design) and without being able to search against it, one could lose track of their calculations very quickly. I also added a NQ/HQ compass and NQ/HQ days that change based on the crystal used in the synth. Getting the look of the HQ/NQ parts actually took much longer than writing the code and formulas. At any rate, the two below images are just a couple of examples.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
The Latest Wiz-Bang Piece of my Gear Database
As I've mentioned in the past I built a database that allows me to search all the gear and food in the game by their attributes. From time to time I have epiphanies and add parameters or rewrite the code to be more efficient, but last week I got the ultimate, "Wouldn't if be cool if I could...?" idea. I thought it would be great if I could have the database write my gear set scripts for me.
Now, for sake of honesty, I use Windower, I don't get into all the gadgets and add-ons for it so save the dirty looks for other people. I mainly use it so I can switch back and forth between my monitors, however, I shamefully go to town taking advantage of setting up macros to switch gear (I also use EXPWatch and Clock). It's at this point I decided my database could intervene. You see, the gear sets are simply .txt files stored in a folder under FFXI. In the past when I've picked up new gear or switched between weapons I've had to go into each of these files and physically change the data and save them. It's not like doing that is hard, but I often forget what I've changed or even forget to change things back and on occasion I misspell things. Plus there are about 30 of these files that I've created on my computer and things can get confusing when trying to update 10 or so at the same time.
The database solves all my issues, I have the gear names, what slot they go in, what jobs they are assigned to and whether or not they are R/E. All I had to do was give the database the ability to create a gear set and then allow it to update the gear selections and overwrite the .txt file for that set. About 20 minutes ago I created my first Gear Set and saved it directly to the folder without leaving Access. My efficiency rating has just went up a level and I can now do what FFXIAH and PimpMyFFXIGear only dream of!
Now, for sake of honesty, I use Windower, I don't get into all the gadgets and add-ons for it so save the dirty looks for other people. I mainly use it so I can switch back and forth between my monitors, however, I shamefully go to town taking advantage of setting up macros to switch gear (I also use EXPWatch and Clock). It's at this point I decided my database could intervene. You see, the gear sets are simply .txt files stored in a folder under FFXI. In the past when I've picked up new gear or switched between weapons I've had to go into each of these files and physically change the data and save them. It's not like doing that is hard, but I often forget what I've changed or even forget to change things back and on occasion I misspell things. Plus there are about 30 of these files that I've created on my computer and things can get confusing when trying to update 10 or so at the same time.
The database solves all my issues, I have the gear names, what slot they go in, what jobs they are assigned to and whether or not they are R/E. All I had to do was give the database the ability to create a gear set and then allow it to update the gear selections and overwrite the .txt file for that set. About 20 minutes ago I created my first Gear Set and saved it directly to the folder without leaving Access. My efficiency rating has just went up a level and I can now do what FFXIAH and PimpMyFFXIGear only dream of!
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
On Updates and Things That Make Me Sad
Real Life is Full of Fail
Of the things that make me sad perhaps I should be more direct, I'm looking at you cancer. About three weeks ago my grandfather, the only stable male role model I had growing up, was diagnosed with an aggressive form of lung cancer. I'm not certain of the name, but I imagine it is something horrible. At any rate without chemo he was given 6-8 weeks to live, with chemo they think they can add another six months, and there is a rare outside chance that he could last another six years. For that last time-frame one must be a very healthy person to begin with, which my grandfather is not, he's already in the early stages of Parkinson's and he just had quadruple bypass surgery in October, oh, and did I mention they discovered the cancer while he was in the hospital for pneumonia? To further complicate things my grandfather has stopped prepping properly for chemo (drinking fluids), I think he's giving up and the worst part is, I would to if I were in his shoes.
So on top of my grandfather, I was talking to my brother this weekend and it seems his cancer fears are creeping back into the picture. My brother, whom some have met in game as Abile, has suffered most of his life from bouts of Melanoma (skin cancer), he's had least three incidents and fortunately each one was caught in time. Now whether his concerns are a manifestation on what my grandfather is going though or he really has something to worry about is irrelevant, he needs to go to the doctor for a check up. The problem is he's unemployed with family and too proud to ask for help, and since he lives nine hours away I can't always play brother's keeper and make sure he gets his shit sorted out.
And it doesn't stop there, I spoke to my vet today (the cats had their annuals on Friday) and my oldest cat had elevated calcium levels in his blood tests. Now this can mean many things for cats, but one of them is cancer. The vet doesn't seem to think this is a likelihood since he appeared to her as happy and healthy, but he's been awfully needy lately and I'm concerned. We'll be doing a followup in July or so on his blood tests to see if the calcium levels were an anomaly or not. I hope it's not cancer, I had a cat die from Leukemia when I was a teenager and it was an awful experience for me, and probably even worse for my cat.
Wings of the Goddess
I started the new missions for this and as usual, it seems all the action and dialogue revolves around San d'Oria. It's frustrating because all the cool shit is going on in Windurst and Bastok, but the main story revolves around a gay dude and a bunch of elves talking about how awesome the are. At any rate, I'm as far as I can go, and unfortunately me and Rudi's static fell apart when Dean and his wife quit the game. We're gonna have to go back to the drawing board and find people with all the city missions complete if we want a 100% finish to this expansion. Sigh.
I checked out two of the three new areas that were added, Baileys and the Keep, for anyone hoping that they could warp directly to these zones, guess again. It's like the other Beastmen castles, you gotta walk there, which means inv and snk the whole way. The layout is a bit different than it is in the present and there are some new "structure" NMs throughout the castle. I avoided these when I found them as they looked like a belfry and I was worried something might pop out if I hit them. I've since discovered you can "kill" them, though their exact purpose has yet to be determined.
They also introduced the last two medals, and I'm happy to report that I was one of the first people in the world to get the Medal of Altana and the Lex Talionis sword. Personally I was disappointed with both, you get a slightly longer cutscene with the medal, but nothing memorable and for something that, at the very minimum, takes 95 days to complete, I was hoping for a bit more. And speaking of hoping for more, I can't begin to describe how disappointing the new Campaign only weaponskill Glory Slash has turned out to be. Here is something that you need the Medal of Altana AND 100,000 Allied Notes to obtain and at best it does 450 damage, my Blade: Jins routinely top that. Yes, Glory Slash is AOE and yes it does stun the mobs, the AOE is nice if you can get group of mobs corralled by the NPCs, but other than that it's more likely to get you in trouble than anything, and the stun is damn near useless, it lasts maybe three seconds at best. Very, very disappointed, I was hoping for a WS that routinely did 1k damage and if not that then at least make the stun last like 10 seconds or more. Sigh, I guess at least NIN can cap ACC on Campaign mobs with a sword, some of the other jobs that can wield this don't even have native sword traits, it must be a massive wiff-fest for those folks.
Overall, I find the new WotG content to be a disappointment, sure there is some great gear to be had if your are a PLD, but beyond that, no one really benefits from any of it.
Trial of the Magians
There is one word that best describes this new feature: frustration. Nothing is overly hard to do at this point, but it's insanely conditional (be it weather, weaponskills, triggering additional effects, etc) and as such can be very disheartening. That said, in the end all the frustration is rewarded worth some fucking awesome augmented weapons!
Lots of folks seem to be flocking to the super damage weapons and the Occasionally Attack Twice weapons, but imho, the really kick-ass stuff is in the other weapons. The super damage ones I understand, the Ninja katana Mozu, for example, has a DPS of 11.37 when fully augmented, there is only one katana in the game with a higher DPS and that's the relic Kikoku (which, ironically, can be augmented to a DPS of 12.86 through the Trials). The Occasionally Attacks Twice stuff, though, I simply don't get. Not only do they do low damage, but fully augmented they have longer delays, these Trials are too much of a pain in the ass for this nonsense if you ask me. Using NIN as an example again, a fully augmented Isatu has a DPS of 8.79, which is surpassed by a metric shit ton of katanas, many with much better attributes, for me the term "Occasionally" isn't going to cut it if I'm trying to hold hate, it needs to be "Often".
So what does have me so damn excited? Well it's the Kuina katanas, there are two types with buff and debuff attributes. The buff katanas have a DPS of 10.75 and the debuff katanas have a 10.86 DPS, there are only two katanas that can top those and I discussed them in the last paragraph. For me, I'm looking at three buff katanas in particular, AGI +4/EVA +12, VIT +4/Physical DMG Taken -5%, and MND +4/Magic DEF Bonus +5, any combination of these three will go a long way to making me an awesome tank (and should I be able to wield two of the same katana at the same time, then holy shit!). All in all, I think the addition of the feature is a plus for the game, for me, I now have something else to do on my own when I'm bored with Campaign, I can't wait to get some fully augmented katanas!
This weekend Obsidian plans to do some passes at the new VNMs, which drop some insanely awesome rings. The system looks similar to ZNMs and should be a lot of fun to test out.
Of the things that make me sad perhaps I should be more direct, I'm looking at you cancer. About three weeks ago my grandfather, the only stable male role model I had growing up, was diagnosed with an aggressive form of lung cancer. I'm not certain of the name, but I imagine it is something horrible. At any rate without chemo he was given 6-8 weeks to live, with chemo they think they can add another six months, and there is a rare outside chance that he could last another six years. For that last time-frame one must be a very healthy person to begin with, which my grandfather is not, he's already in the early stages of Parkinson's and he just had quadruple bypass surgery in October, oh, and did I mention they discovered the cancer while he was in the hospital for pneumonia? To further complicate things my grandfather has stopped prepping properly for chemo (drinking fluids), I think he's giving up and the worst part is, I would to if I were in his shoes.
So on top of my grandfather, I was talking to my brother this weekend and it seems his cancer fears are creeping back into the picture. My brother, whom some have met in game as Abile, has suffered most of his life from bouts of Melanoma (skin cancer), he's had least three incidents and fortunately each one was caught in time. Now whether his concerns are a manifestation on what my grandfather is going though or he really has something to worry about is irrelevant, he needs to go to the doctor for a check up. The problem is he's unemployed with family and too proud to ask for help, and since he lives nine hours away I can't always play brother's keeper and make sure he gets his shit sorted out.
And it doesn't stop there, I spoke to my vet today (the cats had their annuals on Friday) and my oldest cat had elevated calcium levels in his blood tests. Now this can mean many things for cats, but one of them is cancer. The vet doesn't seem to think this is a likelihood since he appeared to her as happy and healthy, but he's been awfully needy lately and I'm concerned. We'll be doing a followup in July or so on his blood tests to see if the calcium levels were an anomaly or not. I hope it's not cancer, I had a cat die from Leukemia when I was a teenager and it was an awful experience for me, and probably even worse for my cat.
Wings of the Goddess
I started the new missions for this and as usual, it seems all the action and dialogue revolves around San d'Oria. It's frustrating because all the cool shit is going on in Windurst and Bastok, but the main story revolves around a gay dude and a bunch of elves talking about how awesome the are. At any rate, I'm as far as I can go, and unfortunately me and Rudi's static fell apart when Dean and his wife quit the game. We're gonna have to go back to the drawing board and find people with all the city missions complete if we want a 100% finish to this expansion. Sigh.
I checked out two of the three new areas that were added, Baileys and the Keep, for anyone hoping that they could warp directly to these zones, guess again. It's like the other Beastmen castles, you gotta walk there, which means inv and snk the whole way. The layout is a bit different than it is in the present and there are some new "structure" NMs throughout the castle. I avoided these when I found them as they looked like a belfry and I was worried something might pop out if I hit them. I've since discovered you can "kill" them, though their exact purpose has yet to be determined.
They also introduced the last two medals, and I'm happy to report that I was one of the first people in the world to get the Medal of Altana and the Lex Talionis sword. Personally I was disappointed with both, you get a slightly longer cutscene with the medal, but nothing memorable and for something that, at the very minimum, takes 95 days to complete, I was hoping for a bit more. And speaking of hoping for more, I can't begin to describe how disappointing the new Campaign only weaponskill Glory Slash has turned out to be. Here is something that you need the Medal of Altana AND 100,000 Allied Notes to obtain and at best it does 450 damage, my Blade: Jins routinely top that. Yes, Glory Slash is AOE and yes it does stun the mobs, the AOE is nice if you can get group of mobs corralled by the NPCs, but other than that it's more likely to get you in trouble than anything, and the stun is damn near useless, it lasts maybe three seconds at best. Very, very disappointed, I was hoping for a WS that routinely did 1k damage and if not that then at least make the stun last like 10 seconds or more. Sigh, I guess at least NIN can cap ACC on Campaign mobs with a sword, some of the other jobs that can wield this don't even have native sword traits, it must be a massive wiff-fest for those folks.
Overall, I find the new WotG content to be a disappointment, sure there is some great gear to be had if your are a PLD, but beyond that, no one really benefits from any of it.
Trial of the Magians
There is one word that best describes this new feature: frustration. Nothing is overly hard to do at this point, but it's insanely conditional (be it weather, weaponskills, triggering additional effects, etc) and as such can be very disheartening. That said, in the end all the frustration is rewarded worth some fucking awesome augmented weapons!
Lots of folks seem to be flocking to the super damage weapons and the Occasionally Attack Twice weapons, but imho, the really kick-ass stuff is in the other weapons. The super damage ones I understand, the Ninja katana Mozu, for example, has a DPS of 11.37 when fully augmented, there is only one katana in the game with a higher DPS and that's the relic Kikoku (which, ironically, can be augmented to a DPS of 12.86 through the Trials). The Occasionally Attacks Twice stuff, though, I simply don't get. Not only do they do low damage, but fully augmented they have longer delays, these Trials are too much of a pain in the ass for this nonsense if you ask me. Using NIN as an example again, a fully augmented Isatu has a DPS of 8.79, which is surpassed by a metric shit ton of katanas, many with much better attributes, for me the term "Occasionally" isn't going to cut it if I'm trying to hold hate, it needs to be "Often".
So what does have me so damn excited? Well it's the Kuina katanas, there are two types with buff and debuff attributes. The buff katanas have a DPS of 10.75 and the debuff katanas have a 10.86 DPS, there are only two katanas that can top those and I discussed them in the last paragraph. For me, I'm looking at three buff katanas in particular, AGI +4/EVA +12, VIT +4/Physical DMG Taken -5%, and MND +4/Magic DEF Bonus +5, any combination of these three will go a long way to making me an awesome tank (and should I be able to wield two of the same katana at the same time, then holy shit!). All in all, I think the addition of the feature is a plus for the game, for me, I now have something else to do on my own when I'm bored with Campaign, I can't wait to get some fully augmented katanas!
This weekend Obsidian plans to do some passes at the new VNMs, which drop some insanely awesome rings. The system looks similar to ZNMs and should be a lot of fun to test out.
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